Demo S4 won't start up

T

Tillamook

New member
Hello:
____________________________
Athlon 1800+
Biostar MB (fairly recent)
1000 megs ram
Maxtor 120gig 7200 (audio)
WD 80 gig 7200
Generic video card (pretty new 128meg Nvidia)
Audiophile 2496
Windows XP (NO service pack 2)
Currently running HS2004xl, Fruity Loops 5
____________________________
I downloaded and installed the Sonar 4 Demo. When I try to start it, I get a splash screen and then a vague generic error message something like "Sonarprd.exe has encountered an error and will shut down"

I called Sales at Cakewalk, he said sometimes the downloads get corrupted so I downloaded another one but there was no improvement.

This morning I tried starting XP in safe mode, and I got exactly the same results.
I've followed the recommendations for stripping away unnecessary processes in XP. I do have AVG anti virus on the computer, but control center is shut down, and I had task manager "end process" for any AVG activity. I can't figure out how to keep AVG from starting up without deleting the whole program. However, since S4
crashed in exactly the same fashion in safe mode, I'm thinking AVG isn't the problem.

Any suggestions?

Bill
 
Last edited:
I run AVG all the time without problem, Bill. So don't worry, I think it's not the problem. It *could* be your AGP card & drivers problem. Or DirectX related problem. Have you updated your VGA card driver? :)
 
I think all the drivers on this box are within a couple years old. I regularly update
Windows but I haven't done the svc pack 2 yet. I updated Media Player within the last year, I believe that updates Direct X.

Is there anything I can do to manipulate Direct X somehow and see if it's the problem?

Maybe I'll mess around with the video card installation.

Thanks, James.
 
No, I hadn't read that thread. The thought of wiping my drive and starting fresh makes me physically ill . :) My wife wouldn't like it either.

As far as moving folders and such mentioned in the thread goes, I can't see where that would keep the demo from booting, can you?

The registry thing sounds interesting, I wonder if some Cakewalk registry items I have from HS2004xl would be affecting S4? It seems like you should be able to run the Demo on a computer that has HS2004 on it though. I guess I could try backing up my registry, eliminating all Cakewalk entries, and the see if the Demo boots.
 
Wanabe:
Thanks, you nailed it. As it happens, due to my reading of a thread that James had me read, I tried this last night only instead of the toolbar folder, I deleted everything, under "Sonar 4" in the registry. I also did one other thing during the installation setup (answered "no" when it asked if I wanted Sonar to link up with all my previous Cakewalk folders, or something like that) and I wasn't positive which action fixed the problem. You confirmed my suspicions, though, that it was the registry deletion.

Cheers,
Bill
 
Yeah, I was up till 1:00 am, I was surprised at similar the user interface is to Home Studio, almost no learning curve! My very first impression was, hmmm, maybe I don't need Sonar 4, but as the night wore on, seduction took place.
Thanks again for your help with this, James.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top